Bicycles.....

Our recent exploration of the Rhine River from Basle, Switzerland north to Amsterdam was a real adventure. New territory for us, a beautiful river cruise ship, too much good food and wonderful excursions. A great time with Maryland friends we don't see often enough!

We really enjoyed exploring Amsterdam and Dave and I stayed an additional two days after the cruise ended. We visited the Van Gogh Museum, the Resistance Museum, The Canal Museum. We ate good food at outside sidewalk tables - beautiful weather! We went in and out of a few shops, walked along the canals and just throughly enjoyed this beautiful and historic city.

But the bicycles! Everyone uses this preferred method of transporation. There are about twice as many bicycles as residents because most people have more than one. And they are not the super fancy, super expensive American models....they are older and a bit warn and often bought resale. Why? Because people sometimes forget where they parked their bike, or sometimes a bike is stolen and shows up again at a resale shop. It's just part of the process and as our tour guide explained during our walking tour, it doesn't seem to bother anyone that much.

We saw lots of bicyclists with dogs riding in their baskets (little dogs and big dogs). We saw special front seats with windscreens for toddlers to ride in front of their parents. We saw wooden delivery carts attached to the back of some bikes. We saw one boy (about 11 years or so) with his younger brother (about 6) standing behind him....holding his shoulders with feet planted on some kind of short stand behind the pedals. A ride to school I guess.  And we never saw a bike helmet.

Our tour guide explained that in Amsterdam bicycles have the right-of-way.....not the pedestrians. So she suggested we be very careful and look both ways before crossing any of the narrow streets. The bikes have their own lane and step off the sidewalk and cross that one first before worrying about any cars. And believe me....you do have to look more than once! We had some very narrow misses as a bike suddenly rounded the corner.

Before we arrived in Amsterdam our cruise social director told us that the Dutch were some of the tallest and slimmest people in the world. Apparently there have been scientific studies trying to determine why. He was right....it seemed everyone had skinny jeans on skinny legs.

I think it was all that pedaling........